Liberals, modernists and secularists are infidels and must be brought to trial for abandoning Islam, according to an ultra-conservative preacher in the Muslim Brotherhood.

In a video posted on the YouTube channel of the privately owned newspaper Al-Shorouk newspaper on Sunday, preacher Wagdy Ghoneim said: “If they do not repent, the judge must apply the penalty for apostasy.

“If anyone tells you that he is liberal, tell him directly that he is infidel.”

Muslims protest US film by beating Hindus, looting and vandalizing Hindu homes, temple and scriptures

The Shri Krishna Bhagwan Mandir, located in the Gulshan-e-Maymar area of Karachi, was vandalised by a mob rallying against the anti-Islam film ‘Innocence of Muslims’. They also ransacked nearby houses where members of the Hindu community reside, and looted jewellery and other valuables.

For its part, the Gulshan-e-Maymar police registered a case using 295-A (‘deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs’) along with other charges of looting, vandalism and theft, against the protesters.. . .
In the single-room temple, destroyed sculptures of Hindu gods lay scattered. Too devastated to pick up the smashed pieces, its caretaker Maharaj Sunda cried, “I devoted my life to serve the gods, and seeing them like this makes me wish for death.” When the attack took place at 8:30 am, the Maharaj was tending to animals near the temple. Frightened screams from within the temple brought him running back.

When he entered the temple, a scene of chaos greeted him. Six statues of Hindu gods were destroyed. An infuriated mob of 150 people, carrying rocks and sticks, had barged in chanting ‘Allah hu Akbar’, and took away gold adornments from the four-foot statues before smashing them to the ground. Worth more than Rs1 Lakh each, the sculptures were brought from India when the temple was made in 2000.

“It was terrible. Everyone was running to save their lives. Some like me got attacked by stones when we tried to stop them,” said one man named Govinda, pushing his hair back to show a wound on his forehead. The rioters then moved onto their holy books. Showing torn pages of Geeta, the Maharaj’s eyes welled up with tears. “They ripped pages from the old Geeta, and took away the new one.” A broken piece of Radha’s face lay on the floor. A picture of well-known philanthropist Ruth Pfau, who supported an NGO that built the temple, was also torn.

The protesters, who left no stone unturned, then entered nearby houses, snatching gold earrings from newly-married Lakshmi and mangal sutars from others. Another Pathani displayed a scar on her ear where men had ripped out her only gold possession, a single earring. Hurling stones at houses, they also injured a woman who was washing clothes.

The locals had no idea what the protestors were rallying about before they entered the area. All they knew that they were angry with ‘the Americans’. “We are not Americans. We have no link with them. Why were we attacked?” said a resident. This was not the first such incident in the area.

US: Man behind Muhammad film that stoked violent protests across the Muslim world held at a federal jail

The California man behind an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests across the Muslim world was being held at a federal high-rise jail in downtown Los Angeles on Friday over possible probation violations, a prison official said.

Federal officials, citing safety concerns, were tight-lipped about the conditions of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's confinement, including whether he was being held with the general population or was isolated from other inmates.

"He is at Metropolitan Detention Center," said Chris Burke, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, adding that the facility holds 969 inmates.

Nakoula has been described as the producer of a crudely made 13-minute video filmed in California and circulated online under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims." It portrays the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and a sexual deviant.

Egypt: Official tells interviewer she's "hot," head of state "adjusts himself" during meeting with Aussie PM

Egyptian officials have become subjects of sarcasm after a government official told a woman interviewing him she was "hot."

Information Minister Salah Abdel Maqsood told Lebanese host Zina al-Jarhi, "I wish your questions are not as hot as you are," at the start of an interview on the Dubai Satellite channel, Bikya Masr reported Saturday.

Jarhi replied, "My questions are the hot factor."

A video of the interview showed him saying, "Hope your opinions are hot."

Then he said, "She is hot."

His comments elicited sarcasm on social networking sites, with commenters noting that the country's head of state recently "adjusted himself" during a meeting with the female prime minister of Australia.

Fars News cites The Onion, says white US voters would rather have beer with Ahmadinejad than Obama

Iran's Fars News Agency, citing The Onion, said 77 percent of rural white U.S. voters would rather have a beer with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Obama.

The news agency reprinted the story word for word, apparently unaware The Onion is a satirical publication, The Washington Post reported Friday.

A number of U.S. newspapers have made a similar mistake, and Onion stories used to show up occasionally as the top story on a subject on Google news. But most U.S. readers would probably have laughed at a report saying "77 percent of rural Caucasian voters ... would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad, a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed, than spend time with Obama."

Commentary: “It wasn’t the text of the ad that equated Muslims with savages, but Latuff – as well as Eltahawy”

On Tuesday, the prominent Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy informed her almost 160,000 Twitter followers in no uncertain terms that she was incensed by an advertisement that had been placed in some New York City subways stations. Quoting a Reuters report about the ad, Eltahawy referred to it as “‘Savage’ jihad ad,” and, by adding the hashtag #ProudSavage, presumably declared her solidarity with maligned jihadists who see themselves in a war against Israel and (western) civilization.

Indeed, as the day wore on, Eltahawy playfully pondered on Twitter how best to protest the ad, deciding eventually that defacing it with pink spray paint would be “sexier” than the alternatives. A few hours later, Eltahawy was going through with her plan to cover one of the ads with pink paint, but was confronted by a woman resolved to stop her. The ensuing brawl was captured by a New York Post camera crew, and Eltahawy was eventually arrested and held overnight to face a criminal mischief charge in court.

This story is a perfect, if utterly depressing, illustration of the mindless sloganeering that all too often passes for political action and debate nowadays.

First, let us consider what the ad that Reuters described as “inflammatory” really said. As the Reuters report noted, the ad equates “Islamic jihad with savagery;” saying specifically:

“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

To me, the most straightforward reading of the message here is: Jihad, understood as war, and in this case specifically as war against Israel, is savage. This is only “inflammatory” if you worry that many Muslims would be insulted to see violent jihadi acts of war denounced as savage.

But apparently, this is not how Eltahawy and her many ardent supporters read the ad. The most revealing illustration for their reading was provided by the well-known cartoonist Carlos Latuff, who has rightly been criticized for his “staggering amount of work dedicated to advancing explicitly anti-Semitic political imagery.”

Latuff was quick to support the #FreeMona campaign developing on Twitter with a drawing that, according to Latuff’s own caption, meant to illustrate that “equating Muslims with savages is freedom of speech – protesting against it is not…”

But while Latuff claimed that the ad was “equating Muslims with savages”, his rendering of the ad tellingly left out the last line “Defeat Jihad.”

It wasn’t the text of the ad that equated Muslims with savages, but Latuff – as well as Eltahawy and her admirers – apparently equated Jihad, understood as war, and specifically as war against Israel, with Islam and therefore with Muslims.

That would probably please jihadists everywhere.

Let’s now consider what the solidarity expressed in the hashtag #ProudSavage really means in the context of contemporary jihadist declarations and actions.

First, I would hope that we can all agree that self-described jihadists who consider videos of beheadings “very,very important” tools for recruiting volunteers deserve to be denounced as savage.

Unfortunately, jihadi rhetoric can hardly be considered as all that more civilized.

Among the most widely known examples is probably the Hamas Charter, especially the declaration: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

The enormously influential Egyptian Islamic leader Yusuf Qaradawi – who is even regarded by some as “Global Mufti” – has explicitly praised this declaration as “one of the miracles of our Prophet,” noting:

“[W]e believe that the battle between us and the Jews is coming … Such a battle is not driven by nationalistic causes or patriotic belonging; it is rather driven by religious incentives. This battle is not going to happen between Arabs and Zionists, or between Jews and Palestinians, or between Jews or anybody else. It is between Muslims and Jews as is clearly stated in the hadith. This battle will occur between the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews i.e. all Muslims and all Jews.”

Qaradawi has made many similar statements encouraging hatred and violence between Muslims and Jews; indeed, a few years ago, he even used his popular Al Jazeera show that reached an audience of tens of millions of Muslims to praise the Holocaust as a divinely ordained punishment for the Jews, expressing the hope that “Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.”

How “racist” or “hateful” is it to denounce these racist and hateful views as savage?

Indeed, if there is such a thing as universal values and universal human rights and if we all share a common humanity, then it cannot be that denouncing calls by mainstream Muslim organizations and personalities for a bloody Muslim Jihad against Jews is somehow worse than this incitement to Jew-hatred and violence.

Well-meaning people like Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, are therefore arguably wrong to criticize this specific ad by repeating the well-worn piety that “for the vast majority of Muslims, ‘jihad’ refers to a spiritual quest, not the more politicized idea of holy war.”

That may be true, but the fact of the matter is that, as I have documented above, there is today also a mainstream Muslim understanding of jihad as bloody and, as far as Jews are concerned, ultimately genocidal war. There are also numerous violent jihadi groups, and the “vast majority of Muslims” who understand jihad as a spiritual quest have arguably little reason to feel offended when violent terrorists are denounced as savage.

Indeed, in the wake of 9/11, there were countless appeals by western leaders and commentators admonishing people not to conflate terrorists who kill in the name of Islam with the religion followed by more than 1.5 billion Muslims. But when we have an ad that denounces jihad as savage, the “politically correct” consensus now seems to be that this is an “anti-Muslim” ad.

Unfortunately, this view appears to reflect the sad fact that when it comes to Israel, most Muslims are indeed opposed to the Jewish state’s existence and Jews are viewed negatively by an overwhelming majority of Muslims in the Middle East.

Another reason why this ad is interpreted as “anti-Muslim” is of course the fact that it was sponsored by a group that has often rightly been criticized and condemned for campaigns that betray anti-Muslim bigotry. Yet, such groups arguably only stand to gain adherents when it becomes anti-Muslim bigotry to denounce violent jihad as savage.

As deplorable and objectionable as it is that some believe that by denigrating Islam and Muslims in general, they are engaging in pro-Israel activism, it is not all that much better to pretend that widespread hatred of Jews, Israel and even the West doesn’t exist in the Muslim world.

Particularly a prominent writer like Mona Eltahawy surely had the option to turn to numerous widely read media outlets to explain what she finds so objectionable in this specific ad – and perhaps also what she thinks of the mainstream Muslim views of jihad I cited above. Engaging in an act of futile vandalism accompanied by a few rather vulgar tweets and claiming that this is an exercise of free speech and anti-racist political action is indeed a poor reflection on a widely admired writer of our time.

Unthinking demagoguery attracts a lot of fans, it seems. And what do you know: there is also a new slogan, because, naturally, when a much-despised fringe group sponsors an ad describing the jihad that targets Israel as savage, the most anti-racist thing to do is to declare that we are all proud savages now…

A common occurrence in the Gulf, Thai woman describes going from child-carer to being a sex slave

“They were so nice at first, picking me up at the airport and giving me my own room, days off and paid on time,” she began. “I knew from my other friends doing similar jobs that this was very good.”

But then, when the daughter began to spend more time at her grandparents’ home after a few months, the situation turned, and violently so.

“It was an early morning, I think Saturday. I was excited because I had an extra day off and was heading to the beach hotel with my friends,” she tells of the first day of what she said was “slavery.”

As she was showering, she said the couple entered the bathroom to “ask a question.” This was normal, she added, saying the mother would often come in and see how things were going for the young, 20-year-old.

“I didn’t think anything of it at that moment because it had happened before, but when I got out of the shower, I realized they had taken my clothes and towel. I was a little annoyed and let myself dry a bit. I was too excited about going to the beach for the first time,” she continued.

The young woman then said that as she went to her room a few meters from the bathroom she realized that the couple was waiting in her room, naked. She said she was stunned and began to become scared.

“I tried to run, but the husband caught me. The both then tied me to the bed and then the horrors happen,” she says here at Bangkok cafe, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “The woman would come over and insert objects into me as she played with her husband. Then he would start to rape me as she did other things. It was the worst day of my life.”

But it continued for over a year before she was able to steal a large sum of money and escape the city, heading to Bahrain where she was able to obtain a false passport and return to Thailand.

“I don’t know how this happened. I was a good worker and never talked back. Then they started to rape me and abuse me. I was kept in my room for days and days, naked and my food chained to the bed,” she said.

Her story is one of numerous stories of sexual violence and abuse of women working in the Gulf region. As a result of the growing reports of violence towards women, some countries, most recently Nepal and Ethiopia, have barred women from working in the Gulf.

Tanzania: Residents call for shari'ah law, cutting off thieves hands and stoning adulterers to death

SEVERAL residents here called for introduction of sharia law through which thieves will have their hands chopped off and those committing adultery stoned to death.

Speaking at a meeting with members of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) at Miteja and Kinjumbi Ujamaa villages, the residents favoured adoption of Islamic laws."Application of sharia laws will end corruption, theft and promiscuity," said Mr Hassan Abdallah Seif, a resident of Miteja village.

Mr Mohamed Kionjo said capital punishment should be maintained. He dismissed demands by human rights activists charging that "anyone who kills must be killed." "Even in the United States those convicted of murder are executed by lethal injection," he said. Mr Abdallah Mselem, and several other villagers, suggested that Fridays be declared as days of prayer and that Muslims should be allowed to stay with their families at home.

Kashmir: 50 village chiefs resign following 2 assassinations and threats from Muslim extremists

More than 50 sarpanch (village chiefs) have resigned in Jammu and Kashmir after receiving threats from Islamic extremist groups. Their decision was made public in local Urdu-language newspaper following the assassination of a local administrator in Baramulla District, the second in less than two weeks. Locals believe the threats stem from fundamentalists' fear of losing grassroots support in favour of village chiefs.

For the past eight months, village chiefs and their aides have been the victims of intimidation of terrorist groups like Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks) and Jaish-e-Mohammad. So far, more than 700 sarpanch have tendered their resignation.

Everything began in 2011 when the first free vote was held in Jammu and Kashmir's panchayat (village-level administrations) in more than 30 years. Between 13 April and 27 June, more than 30,000 officials were elected with a 79 per cent turnout despite extremists' threats and calls for a boycott.

Libyan president: Attack that killed U.S. Ambassador was planned terrorism, not reaction to anti-Islam film

Libya’s president says the deadly assault on a U.S. consulate was a “pre-planned act of terrorism” timed for the 9/11 anniversary — not spontaneous savagery sparked by an anti-Islam movie.

“They chose this date, 11th of September, to carry a certain message,” President Mohammed Magarief said Wednesday.

The trailer for the California-made film “Innocence of the Muslims” had been on YouTube for several months before the terrorists struck, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The film had “nothing to do with this attack,” Magarief told NBC’s Anne Curry.

“Reaction should have been, if it was genuine, should have been six months earlier. So it was postponed until the 11th of September.”

Also, Magarief said, there was no Libyan mob outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi when the terrorists attacked, first with rocket-propelled grenades and then with mortars that obliterated a safe house.

Magarief’s take is in line with what the White House said last week, when spokesman Jay Carney said it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”

But immediately after the attack, U.S. officials blamed the bloodshed in Libya and a subsequent spate of anti-American protests across the Arab world on the amateurish video which depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a philandering fraud who sanctions rape and child sex abuse.

Ronaldo's “solidarity with Muslims” over Mo film or “proof of conversion” exposed as photo-shopped fake

Living up to its “revolution exporting” reputation, Iranian media has recently posted an image which shows Ronaldo holding a picture frame with the words “There is no God but Allah,” according to news site, The Christian Telegraph.

Within days, the image of the player went viral via Twitter and Facebook, as it was “positioned” to seem in support of Islam and in opposition to the recent controversial U.S.-made film, “The Innocence of Muslims.”

However, it was later revealed that the image had been photo-edited, with the real picture showing Ronaldo holding a frame with an image of himself on the pitch, not the Islamic print.

“The news was spread among Iranian news media,” Saman Kamvar, the Editor-in-Chief at an Iranian Christian news agency Mohbat News - which was one of the main sources of the story - told Al Arabiya English on Tuesday.

Kamvar, who is based in Toronto, said Ronaldo’s “solidarity with Muslims” over the film had been reported, and later pulled down, by the Iran-based Young Journalists Club, closely affiliated with Iranian state media.

Last Friday, Lebanese daily Al-Diyar also published the image and reported that it has been extensively shared on social media sites; whilst also suggesting that Ronaldo was acting in response to the anti-Islam film.

However, many of those who have shared or reported on the image may have not noticed it has been in the public spotlight for a while.

The edited image was first shown on Arabic forums and news websites last June, noting it had been widely shared on Facebook with the claim that Ronaldo had converted to Islam.

It appears the image resurfaced in the past week with a new spin; following worldwide uproar caused by the “Innocence of Muslims” film, which mocks Prophet Mohammed.

Yemen: Four out of five Women now say their lives have only become harder since the “Arab-Spring”

Women in Yemen are worse off now than a year ago, when they played a significant part in the country’s revolution that promised political and economic change, an international aid agency has concluded.

In a report released on Monday, Oxfam International said four out of five Yemeni women claim their lives have only become harder over the past 12 months. Faced with an intensifying humanitarian crisis, which has left a quarter of women between the ages of 15 and 49 acutely malnourished, they say they’re struggling to feed their families and are unable to participate in the country’s transition.. . .
The report, which surveyed 136 women across Yemen in July and August, also says the majority of women asserted they felt less safe than a year ago. They cited concern over the proliferation of small arms “gun battles in the streets of Sana’a” and the risk of sexual assault. In camps for internally displaced individuals, such as in Haradh in the north, women said pressures from current crises have led to higher levels of domestic violence.

Displaced women also said they felt unsafe returning to their homes in provinces like Abyan to the south, where the government recaptured areas from Al Qaida militants this summer. In addition, women said there was a lack of protection provided to them by police and other security authorities.

On the political front, women were emboldened after last year’s uprisings, but now claim they are feeling “sidelined by the transition process and say they have been shut out of decision-making by political parties and the government”, the report said.

Confidential police reports and intelligence files that reveal a hidden truth about the sale and extensive use of English children for sex are exposed today.

They show that for more than a decade organised groups of men were able to groom, pimp and traffic girls across the country with virtual impunity. Offenders were identified to police but not prosecuted.

A child welfare expert, speaking under condition of anonymity, said that agencies’ reluctance to tackle such street-grooming networks was “the biggest child protection scandal of our time”.

The Times has published several articles about a pattern of crimes across northern England and the Midlands involving groups of men, largely of Pakistani heritage, and the sexual abuse of white girls aged from 12 to 16.

We can now reveal evidence from more than 200 restricted-access documents, which show that, in one area, police and child protection agencies have held extensive knowledge of this crime model for ten years, yet have never publicly acknowledged its existence.

The internal police and social services correspondence, research papers, intelligence reports and case files are a detailed history of alleged child sexual exploitation in South Yorkshire since 2000, focusing on Rotherham. They include a confidential 2010 report by the police intelligence bureau warning that thousands of such crimes were committed in the county each year.

It contains explosive details about the men responsible for the most serious, co-ordinated abuse. “Possibly the most shocking threat is the existence of substantial and organised offender networks that groom and exploit victims on a worrying scale,” the report says. “Practitioners throughout the force state there is a problem with networks of Asian offenders both locally and nationally. This was particularly stressed in Sheffield and even more so in Rotherham, where there appears to be a significant problem with networks of Asian males exploiting young white females.” Such groups are said to have trafficked South Yorkshire child victims “to many other cities, including Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Dover”.

Another confidential 2010 report. for the Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board, noted that such crimes had “cultural characteristics . . . which are locally sensitive in terms of diversity”.

It said: “There are sensitivities of ethnicity with potential to endanger the harmony of community relationships. Great care will be taken in drafting . . . this report to ensure that its findings embrace Rotherham’s qualities of diversity. It is imperative that suggestions of a wider cultural phenomenon are avoided.”

Alleged crimes for which no one was prosecuted include:

Fifty-four Rotherham children were linked to sexual exploitation by three brothers from one British Pakistani family, 18 identifying one brother as their “boyfriend” and several allegedly made pregnant by him;

A 14-year-old girl from a loving, supportive family was allegedly held in a flat and forced to perform sex acts on five men, four of them Pakistani, plus a 32-year-old Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker. She gave a filmed police interview and identified her abusers;

One girl, 15, spent days in hospital after a broken bottle was allegedly forced inside her by two young British Pakistani men in a park, causing her to bleed extensively;

A 13-year-old girl was found at 3am with disrupted clothing in a house with a large group of Asian men who had fed her vodka. A neighbour reported the girl’s screams.

Police arrested the child for being drunk and disorderly but did not question the men;
A specialist project’s intelligence report for police identified 61 girls — 59 white, two Asian — linked to sexual exploitation by three brothers from another British Pakistani family. It named 41 associates of the brothers who allegedly used girls for sex.

The confidential documents revealed today suggest a failure by police and social services to protect teenagers and bring charges against their abusers, even when agencies held detailed intelligence about the men and their victims.

They also reveal that one young white girl, known by social services to have been sexually abused by Asian men from the age of 12, was offered language lessons in Urdu and Punjabi by Rotherham council. The aim was “to engage” her in education.

Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham, said he was appalled that in several meetings with senior South Yorkshire police officers to discuss internal trafficking, “no one has ever revealed or even hinted at the important allegations made by The Times”.

He added: “There’s a culture here of denial and cover-up and a refusal to accept the reality that we have men living in the Rotherham community who treat young girls as objects for their sexual pleasure. It’s time to tell the truth. We must root out this evil.”

In 2002, the confidential report of a Home Office-funded research project considered a series of Rotherham case studies. It criticised police for “in all cases” treating young victims “as deviant and promiscuous” while “the men they were found with were never questioned or investigated”.

There have only been two group prosecutions in South Yorkshire since 1996, when concerns were first raised about grooming networks. Several Iraqi Kurds were charged in Sheffield in 2007 and eight British Pakistanis went on trial in Rotherham in 2010.

Throughout this period, Rotherham council has failed to accept the role of ethnicity and culture in such group offending. Earlier this year, this newspaper revealed how the town’s safeguarding children board censored a report into the murder of a 17-year-old girl to conceal the ethnicity of the British Pakistani men suspected of using her for sex from the age of 11.

Germany: Mosque in Hamburg may have violated anti-hate contract, calls for Israel’s destruction

The Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, widely considered by experts in Germany and abroad the long arm of Iran’s regime in the Federal Republic, appears to have violated the spirit – and perhaps the terms – of its contractual partnership with the city of Hamburg.

The mosque and its parent organization are said to have mobilized anti-Israel activists to call for the destruction of the Jewish state.. . .
The legal agreement provides that the Schura, which includes the IZH, is to actively outlaw discrimination and violence because of religion, national origin and religious views.

The taz reported that Möller is looking into the meaning of the IZH’s calls to abolish Israel based on the anti-violence and anti-discrimination language of the partnership agreement.. . .

The Imam Ali Mosque has raised eyebrows over the years, largely because the center advances the anti-Semitism of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, including selling anti-Jewish literature in the IZH building.

A Pakistani minister offered $100,000 on Saturday to anyone who kills the maker of an online video which insults Islam, as sporadic protests rumbled on across parts of the Muslim world.

"I announce today that this blasphemer, this sinner who has spoken nonsense about the holy Prophet, anyone who murders him, I will reward him with $100,000," Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told a news conference, to applause.

"I invite the Taliban brothers and the al Qaeda brothers to join me in this blessed mission.". . .
In the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Saturday, thousands of Islamist activists clashed with police who used batons and teargas to clear an unauthorised protest. In Kano, northern Nigeria's biggest city, Shi'ite Muslims burned American flags, but their protest passed off peacefully.. . .

Germany's embassy in Sudan was stormed on September 14 as was the U.S. mission in the capital Khartoum where there were deadly clashes between police and protesters against the film.

France: African women held as a slave is rescued from her Dubai captors who were vacationing in Paris

Women’s rights groups in France successfully rescued an Ethiopian woman who had been living in modern day slavery by a Dubai couple vacationing in Paris, Trust Law reported.

According to the Committee Against Modern Slavery and the Women’s Association United, the woman was rescued after hotel workers contacted the two groups, who in turn alerted French police of the situation facing the young woman.

According to women’s groups in Ethiopia, who spoke to Bikyamasr.com of the woman’s situation, she faced physical and verbal abuse by the Dubai couple at the Paris hotel.

“After this, police investigated and found gross violations at the hands of the couple and have removed the woman from the situation, which can be summed up as slavery,” a women’s group representative confirmed to Bikyamasr.com on Saturday in Addis Ababa.

According to a report in the Paris daily newspaper Liberation, the incident that sparked the police investigation took place in mid-July, “when the family— parents, eight children and the Ethiopian maid — had checked into the Hotel Concorde Opera for an extended stay,” Trust Law reported.

The 24-year-old domestic worker told an Ethiopian employee in the hotel that she wanted to get away from the family, “who had not paid her for the 18 months since she worked for them and had confiscated her passport.”

Trust Law reported: “According to the police report viewed by Liberation, the young woman exhibited bruises on her forearms and told police a story that is not uncommon in the world of modern slavery. She said that after the death of her mother, an uncle took her to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa where he made her sign up with an employment agency.”

She said one child routinely threatened her that if the household work was poorly done, “You will never return to Ethiopia. I’ll cut your throat.”

The incident highlights why the Ethiopian government has banned women from heading to the Gulf to work as domestic workers as sexual abuse, violence and situations like the one uncovered in France show.

Pakistan update: 20 people killed and 200 injured, worldwide death-toll for Muhammad video now over 40

Twenty people have been killed and another 200 injured on Friday after tens of thousands of demonstrators hit the streets to protest against an anti-Islam film. Police fired teargas and live ammunition to disperse rioters.

At least 17 of the deaths happened in the city of Karachi.

The combined total of the wounded in Karachi, Peshawar, and Islamabad was 195 people, according to AFP.

The government declared Friday a public holiday, named “The Day of Love." The holiday was created specifically so people could peacefully rally against the video. However, the protests quickly turned violent in multiple cities throughout the country.

Protesters have taken to the streets in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Lahore.

In Peshawar, a driver for a Pakistani television station was killed when police bullets hit his vehicle at the scene. A protester was also shot and killed during a separate demonstration in the city, according to AP.

Several hundred protesters set two cinemas and the city’s chamber of commerce on fire, and damaged shops and vehicles. Police used batons to repel the demonstrators. Later in the day, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in one of the city’s neighborhoods calling for the maker of the film to be executed.

Twelve people have died in the city of Karachi. Armed protesters fired on police, killing one officer and wounding another. Members of the same group set fire to two cinemas and a bank, according to AP.

In the country’s capital, Islamabad, which saw violent clashes between protesters and officers on Thursday, protesters burned a police check post and breached the “Red Zone,” where the US embassy is located.

RT correspondent Paula Slier reports there is a standoff between police and protesters trying to reach the US embassy in Islamabad, and that the army has been called in. Throngs are pelting stones at officers, who in turn teargas them as they attempt to storm the embassy.

“What we’re witnessing is the spark to the fire that is seeing tens of thousands of people take to the streets in these cities to hold the US responsible for what they say is the worst attack ever on Islam,” Slier said.

Police also fired teargas on demonstrators in Islamabad and Lahore in an attempt to keep them from advancing toward US missions in the cities.

In an effort to curb the protests and respond to safety concerns, the government has closed numerous shops, markets, and petrol stations throughout the country.

The government blocked YouTube earlier in the week, to prevent citizens from viewing the 14-minute movie trailer of the “Innocence of Muslims.”

The film has generated unrest in the Muslim world over the past 10 days, and led to the deaths of at over 40 people. Most of the anger has been directed at the US government, although the movie was independently directed and produced.. . .
In Iraq, demonstrators in the city of Basra raised Iraqi flags while chanting “Death to America.” Protesters burned Israeli and American flags and raised a banner that read, “We condemn the offences made against the prophet.”

In the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, about 2,000 Muslims burned effigies of President Barack Obama and American flags, demanding the US ban the film.

In Bangladesh, over 2,000 people marched through the streets of Dhaka, burning a makeshift coffin draped in an American flag and an effigy of Obama. They also burned a French flag to protest against the caricatures of Mohammed.

Protesters have also gathered in Tunisia and Lebanon as the protests close in on their 10th day.

Saudi Arabia: Some women turning to each other between the sheets for love and sexual gratification

In a man’s world of domination and hegemony, some women in Saudi Arabia are turning to each other between the sheets in order to feel sexually gratified.

A group of young university-age women in the ultra-conservative Gulf country, all married, told Bikyamasr.com that their husbands are rarely around and have found love in the arms of their female friends.

“Our husbands are always traveling, going to Southeast Asia and other countries so we know what is going on with them and when they come back they abuse us, so we have kind of fallen in love with each other,” Sumaiya, a 23-year-old mother of a two-year-old little boy, told Bikyamasr.com in her upscale Riyadh flat.

She says that her “girlfriend,” also married and 24-year-old Razan will come around almost daily. They both blush as they give a few details of how their relationship began.

“We both just started venting to each other about how horrible our husbands are and how they mistreat us,” began Razan. “After our friendship grew over the past few years, we began to watch movies together and have a few drinks while we did so.”

They said one evening, with their children at Sumaira’s parents’ home, the two decided to watch a pornographic film together. They didn’t really know what to expect, they said.

“We were just watching and the first scene we saw were two women having sex. They looked so into each other. That’s when it happened,” Razan admitted, turning her head slightly away in apparent embarrassment.

The two said that they decided to emulate the women on the film, stripping naked and indulging in each other. It was a spur of the moment act, they both admitted, but since then have been having sexual escapades together.

Pakistan: “How dare you drink from a Muslim’s glass?” Christian beaten for drinking water from “Muslim” cup

Nisar Masih, assistant at the Veterinary Dispensary at Jandiala in the Narang Mandi police area, told The Express Tribune that he had filed an application on August 4 to the Sheikhupura regional police officer (RPO) against ASI Rana Raees Ahmed, the police post in charge and constable Muhammad Sarfaraz for beating him up for drinking water from a glass he found in front of the former’s office.

According to the complaint, Sarfaraz took Nisar Masih to the office of Ahmed on seeing him drink water from the office cooler. Ahmed asked Nisar Masih about his religion. When he responded that he was a Christian, Ahmed remarked, “How dare you drink from a Muslim’s glass?” Ahmed then asked Nisar Misih to sit. When he sat in a chair, Ahmed admonished him, “How dare you sit on a chair? Sit on the ground.” Masih said Ahmed also abused and beat him. His ordeal only ended when dispensary incharge Dr Mohsin Farooq Hashmi and two other colleagues pleaded with Ahmed to secure his release. Nisar Masih said, “I approached former MPA Chaudhry Wajid Ali on July 29 to request action against the police officials. He informed the concerned DSP and also forwarded a written complaint.” He said he had stopped going to work since the incident fearing another beating.

ASI Ahmed told The Tribune he had had no objection to Nisar Maseeh sharing their glass when he did not know he was a Christian. “On July 28, there was a complaint and I called him to my office and asked him about his religion. He said he was a Christian, I asked, ‘How come he drinks from a glass used by Muslims?… Christians can’t use utensils used by Muslims.”

In Pakistan, tens of thousands of people joined protests encouraged by the government in several cities including Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Multan and Muzaffarabad.

The bloodiest unrest erupted in the southern city of Karachi, where three policemen and two protesters were killed and 112 people wounded, according to Allah Bachayo Memon, spokesman of the chief minister of Sindh province. He said about 20 vehicles, three banks and five cinemas were set on fire.

Crowds set two cinemas ablaze and ransacked shops in the northwestern city of Peshawar, clashing with riot police who fired tear gas. At least five protesters were hurt and the ARY television station said an employee had been killed.

Mohammed Tariq Khan, a protester in Islamabad, said: "Our demand is that whoever has blasphemed against our holy Prophet should be handed over to us so we can cut him up into tiny pieces in front of the entire nation."

Security forces fired in the air in Peshawar and the eastern city of Lahore to keep protesters away from U.S. consulates. Police fired tear gas at about 1,000 protesters in Islamabad.

The U.S. embassy in Pakistan has run television spots, one featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying the government had nothing to do with the film about Mohammad.

Pakistan declared Friday a "Day of Love" for the Prophet and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said an attack on Islam's founder was "an attack on the whole 1.5 billion Muslims".

White House now says deadly 9/11 attack on the US Consulate in Libya was an Islamic terrorist attack

After saying for days the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was the result of a spontaneous demonstration over an offensive video, the Obama administration now says a U.S. ambassador and three Americans were killed in a terrorist attack.

But the White House still would not backtrack on its claim that the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam video used hours before by Muslim clerics for a protest against the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

"It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday.

Carney had previously refused to label the attack as terrorism, blaming instead the filmmaker of an obscure video for the unrest throughout the region. And U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Sunday that the attack was "spontaneous â?? not a premeditated â?? response to what had transpired in Cairo."

Carney's statement Thursday came a day after Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee under questioning that it was terrorists who executed an attack on the consulate and then chased down fleeing staff to an embassy safe house. But he said he knew of no evidence that the attack it was planned ahead of time., calling it an "opportunistic attack."

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, who has had private briefings on the incident, reacted to Olsen with incredulity.

"Based on the briefings that I have had, I come to the opposite conclusion," Collins said. "I just don't think people come to protests equipped with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and other heavy weapons."

Participants in the attack appear to include members of several extremist Islamic groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a North African affiliate of the Islamic terror group, Olsen said.

Mohammad Magarief, Mohammed el-Megarif,AP head of the Libyan National Congress, has said the attack was pre-planned and timed for the anniversary of the 9/11 Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

Australia: Opposition Leader calls for compensation to 300 Australian victims of Islamic terror

A political slanging match has broken out over the traditionally politically neutral subject of Australian victims of terrorism.

Speaking from a Parliament House garden dedicated to the victims of the Bali bombings, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott today called for the government to retrospectively pay Australian victims of terrorism overseas, or their families, about $75,000 each in compensation, including the Bali bombing victims.

About 300 Australians have been killed or injured in such attacks.

Mr Abbott said those caught up in the September 11, 2001, Bali, London, Jakarta and Mumbai attacks had received no government financial assistance.

He also conceded he had spoken to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the issue and she told him she would have a look at it.

The total cost would be about $30 million for the 300 victims, assuming they got the maximum compensation amount of $75,000 currently paid to Australian victims of crime at home.

Detectives with the State Crime Command’s Sex Crimes Squad have been continuing investigations since charging a Sydney sheik, a retired nurse and the parents of the two sisters.. . .

Earlier today two women were arrested in Sydney and two women in the Wollongong area. They were each charged with prohibition of female genital mutilation.

Police will allege the four women, aged 39, 68, 73 and 77, were each present at one or both of the procedures, also known as female circumcision, performed on the two sisters when they were aged six and seven .. . .
Sheik Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, 56, of the Dawoodi Bohra community at Auburn, and Helen Magennis, 68, a retired nurse of Campbelltown, and the children's parents were all previously charged in relation to the alleged acts on the girls.

Pakistan: Muslim family in hiding after death fatwa issued for refusing to participate in movie protest

Demonstrators angry over an anti-Islam film accused a local businessman in southern Pakistan of blasphemy, forcing the police to open a case and driving him and his family into hiding, following an argument that broke out when he refused to join their protest, officials said Wednesday.. . .

The incident in the city of Hyderabad began when hundreds of protesters rallied Saturday. Some protesters demanded that businessman Haji Nasrullah Khan shut his roughly 120 shops in solidarity, said police officer Munir Abbasi.

When Khan refused, one of his tenants said his decision supported the film, the officer said.

The protesters claimed Khan insulted the Prophet while arguing with them, said city police chief Fareed Jan. But he said there was no evidence to suggest the insults really occurred and that police only opened a blasphemy case because they were pressured by the mob. Opening such a case doesn't mean the person is necessarily charged with the crime but that police are investigating him or her.

The situation became even more inflamed when religious leaders from one of the biggest mosques in the city issued an edict calling for Khan's death and announced from the mosque's loudspeakers that he should be killed, Abbasi said.

The police officer said Khan and his family members had gone into hiding in fear for their lives.

Commentary: Offended Muslims should get over it, instead they bring the Dark Ages to Australia

THE most repugnant aspect of the protests by radical Islamists in Sydney was that it provided a terrifying insight into the workings of intergenerational hatred.

Normal parents go out of their way to shield their kids from repellent images and distressing concepts. If your kids happen to see footage of passenger jets being flown into buildings, or a pile of bodies lying on a war-torn street, it is normal to tell them it is nothing and change the channels.

If your child happened to ask you what beheading was, you would change the subject.

Happily, children are not even aware of the hideous concept.

Except in Sydney, on Saturday, where a bunch of kids under the age of 10 paraded through the CBD with placards kindly made for them by grown-ups, saying the enemies of Allah should have their heads chopped off.

If the reaction to the YouTube film were not so violent and so disturbing in its ramifications you could dismiss it as the most scathing movie review of all time.

Nothing about it has been remotely amusing. We have seen buildings torched across the Middle East, crazed crowds laying siege to American embassies throughout the western world, including in Australia where bottles and punches were thrown at police in broad daylight in Sydney.

The only reassuring aspect to this whole affair was the swift and unequivocal condemnation from pretty much every key Islamic organisation in Australia.

The quotes are worth repeating. They have been hearteningly free of the excuses and double-speak which have undermined past public commentary from fellows such as Keysar Trad whenever relations have been tested by reprehensible conduct from the radicals in our midst, or dopey outbursts from the likes of Sheik Hilaly.

In the past 48 hours, Samier Dandan from the Lebanese Muslim Association said "the violence that took place is not only condemned by the Lebanese Muslim Association but is condemned by all the Lebanese associations". Khaled Sukkarieh of the Islamic Council of New South Wales described the violence as "the action of boofheads". Mahaa Abodo from United Muslim Women said "what happened yesterday was un-Islamic".

It was condemned by the Affinity Foundation, the Turkish Muslim Association, and so on. There were some significant exceptions, such as those charmers at Hizb ut Tahrir, who were probably too busy at Sunday's "Khilafah" conference in the Sydney suburb of Bankstown predicting the rise of a global Islamic government to condemn their brothers for bashing Australian police.

They deny having had a role in the protest but their criticism of it has been at best equivocal.

If the reaction has confirmed that most Australian Muslims are appalled by this violence and the organisations which represent them are getting better at swiftly denouncing such conduct, the episode is also a reminder that, like so many other countries, we have a serious problem with an extremist Muslim hardcore in our suburbs.

There have been calls for the people responsible for the violence to be deported.

This would be terrific if they were neither Australian citizens nor permanent residents. Their actions would absolutely justify their immediate departure.

It is hard to imagine greater ingratitude from people who have sought refuge in Australia because of its quality of life, its social cohesion and its peace, for them to then turn around and behave in the most abominably anti-social way.

The reality, however, is many of these protesters were probably born here, and probably in the type of family environment where dragging your kid along to a protest advocating beheadings isn't seen as aberrant or appalling.

While the leaders of the world's democracies have been as one in condemning the violence, there is one feature of their rhetoric which is deeply irksome.

That is the vehemence with which so many of them have denounced a film which they probably haven't seen, and which none of us are ever likely to see.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the movie as "sinister", Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it "repulsive".

By bandying about these adjectives Western leaders are creating excuses and even encouraging the anger which is felt in the Muslim world.

The message to anyone who is offended by it should be: so what, get over it. The answer to the (apparent) problem of impolite filmmaking shouldn't be tougher vilification laws or police investigations, but a clear message to the more unhinged practitioners of Islam that they should grow up.

There have been plenty of provocative or offensive or edgy depictions of Christ and Christianity throughout the modern age, from Life of Brian to The Last Temptation of Christ to that unpleasant painting with the charming name of Piss Christ. The world's Christians have got through it without burning buildings or cracking police skulls.

It might be impolite to say it but the past week has confirmed the view that, at its most radical, Islam is a few centuries behind the other faiths in the enlightenment stakes.

None of us should apologise for subscribing to post-Enlightenment principles such as free speech, even if that speech causes distress to those who lack the maturity to brush it off and get on with life.

A suicide attack on a minibus in the Afghan capital killed 12 people on Tuesday, including seven foreigners, and the Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group claimed responsibility, saying the blast was retaliation for a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad.

"A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up in response to the anti-Islam video," said Zubair Sediqqi, a spokesman for the militant faction, which does not usually carry out such attacks.

The attack near Kabul airport underscored growing anger in Afghanistan over the film, which has enraged much of the Muslim world and led to the killing last week of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

Thousands of protesters clashed with police in the Afghan capital on Monday, burning cars and hurling rocks at security forces in the worst outbreak of violence since February rioting over the inadvertent burning of Korans by U.S. soldiers.

The suicide attack was the first in Kabul involving a woman and the foreigners killed were mostly Russian and South African pilots working for an international courier company, senior police sources said.

Last Friday, the FBI arrested 18-year-old American citizen Adel Daoud in a plot to detonate a car bomb outside a local Chicago bar. Daoud, who was active in online Jihadi forums and vocal in his desire to commit violent jihad, considered 29 possible targets before settling on the Chicago bar.

Thankfully, the car bomb had been deactivated by the FBI and the public was never in danger. This most recent plot marks the 52nd publicly known, Islamist-inspired terrorist plot since 9/11 and illustrates the continued threat of homegrown terrorism within the United States.. . .
With the bombing attempt by Adel Daoud, at least 52 publicly known, Islamist-inspired terrorist plots have been thwarted since 9/11. The fact that the U.S. has not seen another large-scale attack since September 11, 2001, truly speaks to the nation’s success in combating the continued threat of terrorism.

Internationally, terrorist networks have been dismantled, training camps dispersed, and the terrorist leadership largely decimated. The global environment has become an increasingly hostile one for terrorist networks, while U.S. efforts to halt terrorist travel have strengthened and grown. Together, these facts have given homegrown terrorism greater appeal for al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.

With this most recent plot, at least 43 of the 52 thwarted terrorist plots could be considered homegrown—planned by American citizens, legal permanent residents, or visitors radicalized predominately in the U.S.

On Thursday of last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the video project Innocence of Muslims, the one that may or may not have provoked riots worldwide, "disgusting and reprehensible."

Although Clinton could have seen no more than a 13-minute trailer for the video, she condemned it in no uncertain terms: "Let me state very clearly -- and I hope it is obvious -- the United States government had nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message."

One would think that Clinton might have had a similar reaction to a musical comedy by the name of The Book of Mormon, a satirical, scandalously potty-mouthed riff on the Mormon religion. What follows is one of the show's printable lyrics, this from the song "All-American Prophet."

You all know the BibleIs made of Testaments old and new.You've been told it's just those two parts,Or only one, if you're a Jew.But what if I were to tell youThere's a FRESH third part out there?That was found by a HIP new prophetWho had a little...Donny Osmond flair.

Apparently, Secretary Clinton has flexible standards. The Associated Press reported soon after The Book of Mormon's opening that "[t]he show has been greeted not by protests but rhapsodic reviews and standing ovations from crowds that have included celebrities as diverse as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, actor Jack Nicholson and composer Stephen Sondheim." Indeed, the show has been the biggest hit on Broadway these past two seasons, winning nine Tony Awards along the way.

True, when the show premiered in 2011, the media were shocked. NPR accurately called it "blasphemous." The Washington Post called it "acidic." The New York Times called it "more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak."

But the media did not stop there -- not at all. In context, NPR called The Book of Mormon "blasphemous, hilarious and oddly endearing." The Post called the show "one of the most joyously acidic bundles Broadway has unwrapped in years." And the Times called it, foul-mouthed or not, "a newborn, old-fashioned, pleasure-giving musical."

Although some likely found The Book of Mormon as "offensive and reprehensible and disgusting" as White House spokesman Jay Carney found Innocence of Muslims, the Obama administration chose not to denounce it. Nor could I find any protest from Carney when his former employer, TIME Magazine, praised The Book of Mormon as "bright and enjoyable, and good enough to make even a grumpy critic's 10 Best list."

The White House certainly did not ask the Eugene O'Neill Theater "to review" whether The Book of Mormon "violates their terms of use," as it asked Google to review the trailer for Innocence of Muslims.

Nor did the White House ask the FBI to interview everyone associated with the show, from the set designers to the producers, as it has done for Innocence of Muslims. "We cannot and will not squelch freedom of expression in this country," said Jay Carney. "It is a foundational principle of this nation." That bromide should reassure those people now being grilled by the FBI.

The media, even more than the White House, have been almost comically hypocritical about Innocence of Muslims. When Washington Post reviewer Ann Hornaday called the film "vile," she stopped there. It was not "vile, but." It was just simply vile.

Hornaday struggled to rationalize her contempt for its producers. "The jumble of cheesy-looking scenes and badly dubbed dialogue on display," she concluded, "look less like promotional scenes culled from a fully realized motion picture than a primitive piece of cynical agitprop." That is all true enough, but the left's openly voiced hatred for this project has little to do its with its admittedly awful production values.

The Huffington Post, whose reviewer was "praying" that The Book of Mormon would be "a huge hit and lead the way for more original shows like it," was now leading the way to expose the culprits behind The Innocence of Muslims. The publication has been running banner headlines that read "'Innocence Of Muslims' Filmmaker Identified By Law Enforcement" and "'Innocence Of Muslims' Shot On Hollywood Set, Film Permit Connected To Christian Charity." If the FBI asked the editors to hand out pitchforks and publish a map to the filmmaker's house, they likely would have complied.

Egypt: Muslims cheer as cleric burns Bible outside US Embassy, says grandson will urinate on it

Muslim cleric Abu Islam Burns the Holy Bible in front of thousands of Muslims at protest outside the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, on Tuesday, 9/11. His action was met with applause and anti-Christian cheers from the demonstrators.

According to Mary Abdelmassih in a story carried by the Assyrian International News Agency (www.aina.org), the cleric, before leaving the demonstration and getting into his car, told the crowds “next time I will urinate on it.”

* 0.02 “the overwhelming Book, the Book of Truth and Peace. The place for these words and this book is over the heads because it is the real inspiration… (He places the Koran on his head) voices chanting Allahu Akbar.

* 0.30 He Says: message to the Egyptian Christians. Out of respect and politeness to the Egyptian Christians we will not do the same like what they did to our God’s book, we will be generous towards you today and say we will respect you “momentarily.” We will respect this book which is in the Arabic language.

* 0:54 Demonstrators’ chants “Coming, Coming O Islam”

* 1.09 Abu Islam holds another Bible and says: This is the book the dog Terry believes in, as well as those dogs with him the Egyptian Christians in America.

* 1.19 Abu Islam: Today I can only TEAR IT APART. He starts tearing the bible and throwing the leaves towards the mob, amid chants of Allahu Akbar and “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Mohammad is coming.”

* 2.06 Abu Islam saying: to all the cross worshippers around the world we will not keep quiet . Today, we tore it.

* 2.13 a man in blue beside him burns the bible raising it for everyone to see.

In an interview today with The Mohit newspaper, Abu Islam denied burning the Bible, saying, “I tore it apart and threw it to the demonstrators to step on it with their shoes.” He added, “Next time I will make my grandson urinate on it, as the saying goes, an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth and the starter is at fault.”

Six persons were killed and 12 injured, including two critically, as police opened fire to break up a protest against the desecration of holy Qur’an, police and witnesses said Saturday.. . .

District Magistrate Aparna Upadhyay and Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Kumar said in Ghaziabad that six persons were killed in firing incident besides 12 injured. A Sub Inspector and a Head Constable suffered serious injuries and are in critical condition.

Asked whether protesters died in police firing, they said it was a matter of investigation and they were awaiting post-mortem report to ascertain the cause of deaths. “It could be due to stone pelting or blunt objects...It is a matter of investigations,” they said.

Three policemen were also critically injured in the violence. One of them almost had his head severed with a sharp-edged weapon.

According to Divisional Commissioner Mratyunjaya Narain, some “anti-social elements in the mob started the violence after hundreds marched to the police station to complain against the desecration.”

Even as the community leaders and police were discussing the modalities of the complaint, a section of the crowd went on the rampage, burning vehicles parked in the police station, police said.

Some people also fired at policemen, burnt the police barracks and mess, and moved towards the police residential premises.

Hundreds also blocked traffic on National Highway 24, burnt some private and public vehicles, and allegedly molested some women passengers.

The situation came under control only around midnight Friday, when police found bodies of the six victims.

Afghanistan: 2 Americans killed at base where Prince Harry is deployed, in response to YouTube movie

Insurgents armed with guns and rockets stormed a heavily fortified air field in Afghanistan, killing two US Marines and damaging aircraft in a major security breach at the camp where Prince Harry is deployed.

The Taliban, which is leading a 10-year insurgency against 117,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack to avenge a US-made film deemed insulting to Islam that has sparked deadly riots across the Middle East.. . .
A Taliban spokesman claimed the attack was waged to avenge a low-budget American YouTube film, Innocence of Muslims which allegedly motivated rioters in Libya to kill the US ambassador and three other Americans this week.

“Last night, a number of mujahideen fighters have carried out suicide attacks on Camp Bastion of Helmand in revenge for the insulting movie by the Americans,” spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone.

A government-run primary school was bombed in Lond Khwar village near Mardan while militants blew up a CD shop in Dagai village of Swabi District on Friday.

Fazal Subhan, an official of Lond Khwar Police, said that at around 12:30am, unidentified militants detonated explosives at a girls primary school in Saeedabad, adding that militants planted the explosive at the boundary wall of the school. As a result, two classrooms, the verandah and the boundary wall of the building were completely destroyed.. . .

On July 23, three CD shops were destroyed by militants with explosive materials in Baja village of the district, while on September 2, a CD centre was blown up in Par Hoti area of Mardan.

US: Illegal Muslim immigrant from Morocco sentenced to 30 years for US Capitol building bomb plot

A federal judge sentenced a Moroccan man to 30 years in prison on Friday after he was caught in an FBI sting operation planning to detonate a bomb in the U.S. Capitol building, prosecutors said.

Amine El Khalifi, 29, an illegal immigrant who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, was sentenced after pleading guilty in June to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.. . .
[El Khalifi] moved to the Washington area in 2000 and held a variety of jobs, including retail clothing sales in the upscale Georgetown neighbourhood, his lawyers said. A nightclub argument in 2007 resulted in his conviction on misdemeanour criminal charges, an incident that led to a deepening commitment to his religion, Islam, they said.

In conversations with FBI agents who said they were from al Qaeda, El Khalifi talked about wanting to bomb U.S. military targets on behalf of God, prosecutors said. He changed his mind and focused on the Capitol building, seat of the U.S. Congress and a popular tourist attraction.

Muslim Brotherhood calls for more demonstrations, US braces itself for post-Friday prayers violence

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood calls for demonstrations after Friday prayers, as do authorities in Iran and the Gaza Strip.

The Obama Administration is bracing for another potential eruption of violent demonstrations in parts of the Muslim world after Friday prayers, in the wake of Wednesday’s attack on the U.S.Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed the ambassador and three other Americans.

Angry protests over an anti-Islam video have already taken place in Egypt and Yemen, and officials theorize that well-armed Libyan extremists hijacked a similar protest in Benghazi, where several Libyan security guards were also killed. All U.S. diplomatic missions overseas are now on high alert and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an explicit denunciation of the video as the administration sought to preempt further turmoil at its embassies and consulates.

Commentary: Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism is beginning to demolish political correctness

The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is a priest of the Church of England and former Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal.

It was refreshing to read such a plain and unequivocal line in today’s editorial column: “The simple fact is that Islamic fundamentalists are irreconcilable. To them the US will remain the Great Satan.” This was, of course, a comment on the murder of the US ambassador to Libya.

I wonder if, in the midst of all this horror, we might begin to see signs of hope? I mean, might we at last be beginning to escape the mealy-mouthed world of all that has for long remained unsayable. Perhaps there are, after all, limits to political correctness. I dare to breathe the hope that maybe western societies will not die the death of a thousand euphemisms. I thought I detected signs of this dawning sanity just after 9/11. We were shocked into reality then. And we were geared for war. People expected it. There was a creepy silence in the streets of the City of London. Weekday attendances at our lunchtime Eucharists doubled and tripled. There were reassuring signs of seriousness. Then, within a few weeks, under a barrage of media propaganda telling us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, euphemistic orthodoxy and the fatal disease of appeasement returned.

It has been with us ever since. The Ministry of Truth operated by the Guardianistas and the BBC have delighted in what they call “The Arab Spring,” as if this heralded the advent of “democracy” all across North Africa and the Middle East. As we now learn from events in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, the Sinai – and most recently in Libya – this was always a delusion, a perversion of reality flying in the face of the facts.

The fact is that a resurgent, militant anti-western Islamic fundamentalism is the gravest threat to civilisation. This is bad news of course. But the good news – as evinced in today’s editorial column – is that finally we are being allowed to name this peril for what it is.

A mob enraged by a film ridiculing Islam’s prophet killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in a fiery attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the violence, vowed Wednesday to bring the killers to justice and tightened security at diplomatic posts around the world.

The attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens — the first U.S. diplomat to die in the line of duty since 1979 — came on Tuesday’s 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist strike and presented a new foreign policy crisis for the United States in a region trying to recover from months of upheaval.. . .
Details of how the Americans were killed were still being pieced together Wednesday. But according to al-Sharef’s account, two distinct attacks took place.

Al-Sharef said Stevens and a consulate staffer who had stayed behind in the building were killed in the initial attack on the consulate.

The rest of the staff successfully evacuated to another building nearby, preparing to move to Benghazi Airport after daybreak to fly to the capital, Tripoli, he said.

Hours after the storming of the consulate, a separate group of gunmen attacked the other building, opening fire on the more than 30 Americans and Libyans inside. Two more Americans were killed and 32 wounded — 14 Americans and 18 Libyans, he said.

Muslims protest by violently rioting, attacking US consulate with guns and grenades, murdering American

A movie attacking Islam's prophet Muhammad sparked assaults on U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday. A Libyan security official reported an American was shot to death as protesters burned the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and in Cairo, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy walls and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.. . .

In the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, a large mob stormed the U.S. Consulate, with gunmen firing their weapons, said Wanis al-Sharef, an Interior Ministry official in Benghazi. A witness said attackers fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate as they clashed with Libyans hired to guard the facility.

The crowd overwhelmed the facility and set fire to it, burning most of it and looting the contents, witnesses said.

One American was shot to death and a second was wounded in the hand, al-Sharef said. He did not give further details, and there was no immediate U.S. confirmation of the death.

Hours before the Benghazi attack, hundreds of mainly ultraconservative Islamist protesters in Egypt marched to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting against the movie and the U.S. Most of the embassy staff had left the compound earlier because of warnings of the upcoming demonstration.

"Say it, don't fear: Their ambassador must leave," the crowd chanted.

Dozens of protesters then scaled the embassy walls, and several went into the courtyard and took down the American flag from a pole. They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but failing that tore it apart.

The protesters on the wall then raised on the flagpole a black flag with a Muslim declaration of faith, "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet." The flag, similar to the banner used by al-Qaida, is commonly used by ultraconservatives around the region.

The crowd grew throughout the evening with thousands standing outside the embassy. Dozens of riot police lined up along the embassy walls but did not stop protesters as they continued to climb and stand on the wall - though it appeared no more went into the compound.

The crowd chanted, "Islamic, Islamic. The right of our prophet will not die." Some shouted, "We are all Osama," referring to al-Qaida leader bin Laden. Young men, some in masks, sprayed graffiti on the walls. Some grumbled that Islamist President Mohammed Morsi had not spoken out about the movie.

A group of women in black veils and robes that left only their eyes exposed chanted, "Worshippers of the Cross, leave the Prophet Muhammad alone."

Egypt: Islamophobic Muslims on 9/11 anniv. chant, "Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas!"

Egypt is an enemy of the United States. We wanted free elections and we got them. What they have given us, as I argue in my imminent new book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, is an Egyptian regime that reflects Egypt’s Islamic supremacist population — among the world’s worst human-rights violators.

“Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas!” they cried today as they attacked our embassy, shredded our flag, and replaced it with the al-Qaeda flag — the one so popular with the “rebels” in Libya and Syria. One of the 9/11 hijackers was an Egyptian, as is the current leader of al-Qaeda, as is the Blind Sheikh. A real ally would be embarrassed. An enemy marks the day like Egypt did. The Obama administration marked the day by apologizing for free speech and declining a presidential audience to the prime minister of Israel — our actual ally in the region. President Obama’s calendar is very busy after all: Between campaigning and rounds of golf, he’s blocked a day to roll out the red carpet for Egypt’s new president.

Is it too much to hope that the Romney campaign might see an opportunity here to make a point about American national security and foreign policy under Obama? Remember back in 2002, back when we were following the original “with us or against us” Bush Doctrine — back before the doctrine was warped by delusional visions of sharia democracy? Here’s the question: Would they have dared storm the American embassy in Cairo on September 11, 2002?

The Pakistani doctor who helped CIA hunt down Osama bin Laden has outed Pakistan's involvement in terrorism saying the country's spy agency ISI still supports militancy and regards the United States as its worst enemy. His remarks have embarrassed both Islamabad and Washington, particularly after the latter had tried to gloss over Pakistan's use of continued use terrorism and give the ISI a free pass last week while designating the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization.

"It is now indisputable that militancy in Pakistan is supported by the ISI ( Inter-Services Intelligence). Pakistan's fight against militancy is bogus. It's just to extract money from America," Dr Shakil Afridi was quoted as saying in an interview to Fox News in a interview from inside Peshawar Central Jail, where he is being held by Pakistani authorities. He said he had been brutally tortured by the ISI for helping the US and gave elaborate details of how the ISI was in cahoots with terrorists.

UK: Mosque leader steps down after being caught offering to wed a preteen girl to an adult

A Muslim cleric at the centre of an illegal marriage scandal has stepped down after he allegedly offered to marry a 12-year-old girl to a man in his 20s.

Imam Mohamed Kassamali is said to have told an undercover reporter posing as a father that he could carry out a ceremony for his school-aged daughter.

He allegedly told the Sunday Times journalist: 'If it (the marriage) was not possible, I would have told you straight away... I would love the girl to go to her husband’s houses (sic) as soon as possible, the younger the better.

'Under Sharia (Islamic law) there is no problem. It is said she should see her first sign of puberty at the house of her husband.

'The problem is that we cannot explain such things (the marriage) if the girl went tomorrow (to the authorities).

'The other thing is the underage thing and if tomorrow the girl is, let’s say coerced or forced into this, and she goes and reports it to the police then she will put all of us into the problems.'

Insurgents armed with guns and rockets stormed a heavily fortified air field in Afghanistan, killing two US Marines and damaging aircraft in a major security breach at the camp where Prince Harry is deployed.
The Taliban, which is leading a 10-year insurgency against 117,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack to avenge a US-made film deemed insulting to Islam that has sparked deadly riots across the Middle East.ghbors, Hindi cited the Quran, the theory of creationism, the idea that America has gone to Communism, threatens to form his own homeowners association and accused neighbors of stealing his "no trespassing signs" in the dispute over the fence.

Iraq: More than 90 killed and more than 360 wounded in at least 21 bombings and shootings in 1 day

It was one of the deadliest days in Iraq this year.

Officials say more than 90 people have been killed and more than 360 wounded in at least 21 separate bombings and shootings in 13 cities Sunday.

The attacks began before dawn, with gunmen killing soldiers at an army post in central Iraq. A few hours later, a car exploded in a lot where police recruits were waiting in line to apply for jobs outside Kirkuk in the country’s north.

The carnage stretched into the country’s south, where bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in the Shiite-dominated city of Nasiriyah.

Late in the day, bombs exploded in Shiite areas of Baghdad.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but Iraq’s Interior Ministry blamed al-Qaida in Iraq. It says the attacks were aimed at provoking sectarian and political tensions.

Indonesia: "It's shameful" denounces Christian leader as Minister, Mayor and Islamists close the Yasmin Church

"It's shameful" denounces Bona Sigalingging, spokesperson for the GKI Yasmin Church, reacting to the closed-door meeting between the Minister of Internal Affairs of Indonesia, the leaders of the city of Bogor, West Java, and the leader of an Islamic extremist movement. The gathering has resulted in the expulsion of the Protestant community from their place of worship, despite the possession of regular building permits and a judgment of the Constitutional Court. In response, the leaders of the Christian movement have filed a formal complaint to the courts against the local administration and the mayor Diani Budiarto.

The meeting was held on September 8 and was atteneded by Gamawan Fauzi, Indonesian Minister of the Interior, Iman Ahmad, head of the Islamic extremist group Forkami, and the mayor of Bogor Diani Budiarto. The minister's decision has caused confusion within the Christian community, in addition to being excluded from the bargaining table, the faithful have had to passively endure the will of both parties - the local administration and the extremist movement Forkami - who more than any other have "persecuted" the religious minority in recent months.

Interviewed by AsiaNews Bona Sigalingging, YC spokesperson, branded the decision to invite the leader of Forkami as "shameful". This is a wellknown "radical Islamic group," he adds, that "has fueled tension" and again "has succeeded in having us forcibly removed from our church." The YC leader notes that the decision to close the place of worship is contrary to the judgments of the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman and that they have filed a complaint with the police. This latest appeal to the courts of justice is supported by the Synod of Indonesian Churches (PGI) and the Working Group on Human Rights, which speaks of "double face" of the government in terms of religious freedom.

The process for building a church in Indonesia - Catholic or Protestant - is quite complicated and may take five to ten years to obtain all permits required by law. The procedure is governed by the Izin Mendirikan Bangunan (IMB), a species of written protocol that allows for construction to commence and is issued by local authorities. The story gets more complicated if it is a place of Christian worship: permission must be obtained from a number of residents in the area where the building is to be constructed and the local Group for Interfaith Dialogue. And even if the permission is granted "unspecified reasons" can come into play that will lead officials to block the projects. Often, this occurs after pressure from the Muslim community or radical Islamic movements.

In late May, the faithful of the Yasmin Church celebrated Pentecost in Jakarta in front of the presidential palace. The Christians gathered near the residence of the head of state of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono because deprived of their places of worship. For three years, they have not been able to go to church, sealed at the behest of local authorities and the Mayor Diani Budiarto, who denounce alleged irregularities in the release of IBM.

Pakistan: Since 1990, 52 people accused of blasphemy have been extra-judicially killed by Muslims

Ever since the introduction of stringent amendments in blasphemy laws under General Ziaul Haq’s rule, more people suffered from communal clashes than ever in the sub-continent. Since 1990 alone, fifty-two people have been extra-judicially murdered on charges of blasphemy.

The number of blasphemy-related incidents shot up during Zia’s rule, during which 80 cases were reported to the courts compared to only seven such cases reported during the British rule from 1851 to 1947.

This information was revealed in a report titled: ‘Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan; Historical Overview’ launched on Friday by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).. . .
The CRSS report said that among the 52 people extra-judicially murdered for being implicated in blasphemy charges, 25 were Muslims, 15 were Christians, five were Ahmadis, one was Buddhist and one was Hindu. Known blasphemy cases in Pakistan show that from 1953 to July 2012 there were 434 ‘offenders’ in Pakistan, among them 258 were Muslims,114 Christians, 57 Ahmadis and four Hindus.

One case cited in the report was that of Hafiz-e-Quran Dr Sajjad Farooq, who was beaten to death by religious vigilantes in Gujranwala on false blasphemy charges in April 1995. Another case cited in the report was that of seven people who were burnt alive and 18 others injured in Gojra in 2009 over the alleged descecration of the Holy Quran by a Christian community member, the report said.

Some of the incidents of blasphemy recorded in the overall record included the design of a house of worship for Ahmadis, throwing a visiting card in the dust bin, a quote from the Holy Quran by a pastor, a child’s name, a spelling error and calling the law a ‘black law,’ said the report.

A teenage suicide bomber blew himself up outside NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital on Saturday, killing six civilians in a strike that targeted the heart of the U.S.-led military operation in the country, officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which was the latest in a series of attacks carried out by insurgents in the heavily-fortified Afghan capital. The U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign this spring aimed at shoring up security in Kabul before a significant withdrawal of combat troops limits American options. The strategy is part of an overall plan to gradually hand over security to Afghan security forces.

LiveLeak restores "Science and Islam: A Reply to '1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets'"

LiveLeak just gained 1001 Cool Points.

After receiving a false copyright infringement claim from the Islamic supremacist group "1001 Inventions," LiveLeak took down my video. However, after receiving a number of complaints from AM fans, someone at LiveLeak apparently watched the video, realized that the infringement claim was false, and put the video back up. Let's hope they continue in their resolve.

Indonesia: 2 Muslim terror groups plot attacks on parliament building and police in the name of jihad

Arrested Indonesian terror suspects have revealed plots on the parliament building and to attack police in the name of jihad, a senior official said Friday.

Two different terror groups planned to attack the country’s parliament in Jakarta and plotted bomb and gunfire attacks on police in the central Java city of Solo, the country’s counter-terrorism agency’s chief Ansyad Mbai said.. . .
Bayu Setiono, 22, who was arrested following a shootout last week in Solo that left two terrorist suspects and an anti-terrorism officer dead, said his group plotted more attacks.

“Our plan is to break up Solo like what happened in Ambon and Poso. We want to uphold Islamic Shariah and create a Muslim caliphate in Indonesia,” he said referring to violence between Muslims and Christians, killing thousands in early 2000.

In an interrogation video released by police on Thursday, Setiono said they targeted police as they were considered as infidels for arresting and killing Islamist militants.

A British businessman has taken the unusual step of seeking a private prosecution against a computer expert wanted in the United States on terrorism charges, his law firm said on Thursday.

Karl Watkin, who made a fortune from bio-fuel and internet companies, said it was a "disgrace" that Babar Ahmad had not been brought to trial in his home country eight years after he was arrested.

Ahmad has been held in a British jail while his lawyers have been fighting his extradition. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is currently reviewing whether sending Ahmad to the United States is lawful.. . .

U.S. officials accuse Ahmad of running a website that supported the Taliban and raised money for Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The website was run from London, but was hosted by a U.S.-based company.

Pakistan is expelling foreign staff of the Save the Children aid group, an agency official said on Thursday, a decision apparently linked to government suspicion the charity helped US spies hunting Osama bin Laden.

The Interior Ministry had told the aid group that its six foreign employees had to be out of Pakistan within two weeks, said Ghulam Qadri, the group’s director for programme planning and communications.

The ministry gave no reason for the decision, he said. Interior Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

Save the Children and other aid groups have come under government suspicion because of media reports they had come into contact with a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who helped the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hunt down bin Laden.

Click here to read about the previous false copyright claim made to YouTube by 1001inventions.com.

UPDATE

The pro-Sharia, anti-freedom, Islamic supremacist group "1001 Inventions" has managed to have my video taken down from YouTube, LiveLeak, DailyMotion, GodTube, and Vimeo. Notice that the video is a simple critique of their absurd claim. 1001 Inventions wants a world where they're free to spout their Islamic supremacist nonsense, but no one is free to respond. It's sad to see YouTube, LiveLeak, DailyMotion, GodTube, and Vimeo

Hmmm. I feel a lot of videos coming on.

ORIGINAL POST

Copyright Law protects intellectual property, which is why you're not supposed to sell bootleg copies of the latest Batman film. However, due to the strong tradition of Free Speech in the West, Copyright Law allows people to use short portions of copyrighted material for purposes of education and criticism. This is why you're allowed to quote from books or articles in your own books or articles.

There is no Copyright Law under Sharia. However, Islamic supremacists gladly use Western laws when they can manipulate these laws in defense of Islam.

Recently, I posted a YouTube video titled "Science and Islam: A Reply to 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets." In the video, I play short clips of an Islamic supremacist video, and I respond to the clips. This is perfectly legal under Copyright Law, and is a textbook example of Fair Use.

Nevertheless, YouTube isn't in the habit of defending the rights of critics of Islam, and they took down the video in a matter of hours after 1001 Inventions filed a false copyright infringement claim. I then posted the video to LiveLeak, hoping that they would have more respect for Fair Use. No such luck. The video was taken down this morning in response to a false copyright infringement claim. I'm guessing 1001 Inventions has some intimidating lawyers, and who wants to stand up to intimidating lawyers on behalf of critics of Islam?

The irony here is tremendous. The 1001 Inventions group is working day and night to convince Westerners that Islam supports scientific advancement. Yet one of the cornerstones of scientific advancement is having the freedom to criticize opposing views. By attempting to stifle all criticism of Islamic supremacist claims, 1001 Inventions has shown their true colors, and their true contempt for open inquiry.

All of this has inspired my Fair Use vs. Sharia Countdown. Is there a single video provider out there willing to stand up for our right to question and criticize Islamic supremacist nonsense? Only one way to find out. I've uploaded the video to several video sites. If one of them refuses to back down to Sharia advocates, you know which site truly believes in Western values.

(By the way, if anyone has accounts on other video hosting sites, feel free to upload the video and send me the link.)

DAILYMOTION

DailyMotion is down for the count! "1001 Inventions" must be paranoid to spend this much time scouring the internet in search of critical responses to their video!

Video removed due to false copyright claim

GODTUBE

Video removed due to false copyright claim

LIVELEAK

Video removed due to false copyright claim

VIMEO

***UPDATE***

The video has been removed from Vimeo after only a few hours! It seems 1001 Inventions spends a great deal of their time blocking criticism!

As many as 2,000 women and girls from various minority sects were forcibly converted to Islam through rape, torture and kidnappings, while 161 people were charged with blasphemy in 2011, according to a report by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC).

SPARC released the report on Tuesday at a press conference at a hotel.

The report read that minorities make up three to four percent of the country’s population but remain sidelined in state policies. In 2011, extremists killed governor Salmaan Taseer and federal minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, as both were advocating minority rights by calling for amendments in the country’s controversial blasphemy law.

After the 2011 floods, 130,000 Hindus were forced to leave their homes and 86,500 ended up on streets of various cities in Sindh. Whereas 27 Hindu children were kidnapped for ransom from different parts of northern Sindh. The primary school enrolment rate of scheduled caste Hindu girls is only 10.2 percent. Ahmadi students have been especially targeted by the hate campaigns. In Hafizabad, 10 Ahmadi students, including seven girls and a teacher, were expelled from school on account of their religious affiliation.

Germany: Police in Berlin probing second Muslim-on-Jewish anti-Semitic attack in a week

A second anti-Semitic attack in Berlin within a week has prompted the launch of a state police investigation.

Berlin police said Monday that 13 girls from the Chabad Or Avner primary school were verbally abused with anti-Semitic slogans by four teenage girls fom the neighboring public school before their physical education class was to begin, according to the German news agency dpa. The Jewish school shares the gym with the secular school.

The four alleged attackers, aged 15 and 16, also reportedly photographed the Jewish pupils with their cell phones. Two young men accompanied the attackers.

A teacher tried unsuccessfully to intervene and speak with the teens, but they fled. At least one was wearing a Muslim headscarf, dpa reported.

The incident follows a brutal attack on Berlin Rabbi Daniel Alter, who was beaten by several men after they asked him if he was Jewish. Alter required emergency medical treatment. The attackers also reportedly threatened Alter's 6-year-old daughter.

Russia issued a strongly worded statement expressing its "deep concern" at a warning that Syrian rebels plan to target civilian airports in Damascus and Aleppo from Tuesday.

"In Moscow we have seen with deep concern the statements distributed in the media by representatives of the so-called Free Syria Army that international civilian airports of Damascus and Aleppo are from now on seen as military targets," the Russian foreign ministry on Monday said in a statement.

State-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Friday reported on a rebel statement cited by London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper saying Damascus and Aleppo airports and commercial flights would be targeted from Tuesday because they were being used for military aviation.

"From a moral and legal point of view this means the opposition's critical proximity to a red line, beyond which are acts that are no different from the crimes of Al-Qaeda."

"The most recent statement by the Free Syria Army essentially confirms that terrorism is turning into one of its main methods of activity," the ministry added.

Russia called for "taking action on the leaders of the Free Syria Army in the most decisive manner to excuse such threats, not to mention their being carried out", and reiterated calls for Russians to avoid travel to Syria.

Gaza Strip: Pornographic website views surpassing social and news websites including official ones

Hamas has ordered a full ban on internet pornography in the Gaza Strip -- the latest restriction on personal freedom imposed by the hardline Islamic political party.

Under a rule passed down by the Ministry of Communications, the ten largest internet service providers in the Palestinian territory must block all XXX-rated content or face fines.

Hamas, which was elected to lead Gaza in 2007, claims the move is necessary to protect 'the fabric of Palestinian society' as more and more Palestinians are seeking adult content online.. . .
The pro-Hamas newspaper Felesteen wrote that the move was long overdue.

'We have learned that pornographic websites… have been receiving many views in Palestinian society over the past two years, surpassing social and news websites, including official ones like the WAFA news agency,' columnist Issam Shawar wrote.

'This is a dangerous indicator which must push us to create an active plan to protect our Palestinian society.'

For a nation that has lost nearly 40,000 lives to terrorism, it defies logic that Pakistan has yet to come up with its own national counter-terrorism strategy and policy.

But that may be a secondary step. Eleven years since the US-led ‘war on terror’ began, Islamabad has yet to figure out a consolidated narrative of the war.

“We still haven’t figured out whether this is our war or America’s. It’s been 11 long years since 9/11 and the debate in Pakistan, unfortunately, still revolves around this theme,” says Zafarullah Khan.

Khan, who recently retired after 34 years of service, feels more independent in speaking his mind. What he has to say holds much weight given that he has held key posts in the past, including that of the joint director-general Intelligence Bureau, director-general Federal Investigation Agency, Commandant Frontier Constabulary Peshawar and National Coordinator of the Counter-Terrorism Authority.

“How will this country make a counter-terrorism policy if nobody in the government is willing to empower an independent body that can formulate such a policy,” he said.

Our Muslim friends at 1001 Inventions filed a FALSE copyright infringement notification with YouTube, claiming that I simply reuploaded their video to YouTube. Copyright law protects my right to post short clips of copyrighted material for purposes of education and criticism, so 1001 Inventions was forced to file a FALSE complaint. Sadly, I had to give an Islamic supremacist group my home address as part of the counter-claim. I'm sure YouTube will restore my video as soon as they look at it, but that can take up to ten days.

ORIGINAL POST

I didn't know it was possible to make so many mistakes in a 13-minute film, but when integrity has gone out the window, anything is possible.

"1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets" is so horrendously deceptive, it will take a few videos to scratch the surface. In this first response, I discuss Islam's contribution to science.

The local court of magistrate Nasrum Minallah Sunday granted 14-day judicial remand of Khalid Jadoon, the Imam (prayer leader) of a mosque, and sent him to Adiala Jail.

Kahild Jadoon is the accused of tampering with the evidence against Rimsha Masih and was arrested last night. He was presented in the court of magistrate Nasar Minallah by police seeking remand.

It may be recalled that Rimsha Masih has been in detention since she was allegedly found holding in her hand burnt pages with holy verses printed on them.

Khalid Jadoon, who after getting the case registered against Rimsha Masih had mysteriously disappeared and was arrested last night. According to an eyewitness account, Jadoon put the holy verses into the ashes of the pages for strengthening the case against Rimsha Masih.

Meanwhile, Chairman All Pakistan Ulema Council Allama Tahir Ashrafi has urged the ulemas from across the country to pave way for the punishment of accused Khalid Jadoon by the court. He has also demanded of the President Asif Ali to immediately get Rimsha Masih released and issue orders for her security.

Unthinkable 30 years ago: US, Canada and Russia work together to confront common enemy

It was a scene unthinkable even 30 years ago as U.S., Canadian and Russian militaries worked together this week at the North American Aerospace Command headquarters to confront a common enemy: terrorist hijackers.

That’s exactly what happened during Vigilant Eagle 12, the third exercise of its kind designed to promote collaboration in detecting hijacked aircraft and scrambling military jets to intercept and escort them to safety.

This year’s three-day exercise was computer-based, with participants at the NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; and at two bases in Russia.

The scenario involved commercial airliners on international flights that had been seized by terrorists, Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard W. Scobee, NORAD’s deputy operations director, told reporters as the exercise wrapped up yesterday. One simulated hijacking took off from Alaska and was headed for Russian airspace; the other originated in Russia and was bound for the United States.

The scenarios required NORAD – the U.S.-Canada command that safeguards U.S. skies under Operation Noble Eagle -- and the Russian air force to go through the procedures they would use to dispatch fighter jets to investigate and track the aircraft heading toward each other’s airspace. At that point, they handed off the missions to the other to complete.

Applying lessons learned during last year’s exercise, which involved actual aircraft, the participants worked through escort and handoff procedures using their different communications, command-and-control and air traffic control systems, Scobee explained.

To complicate the scenarios, and to reflect what assets might be available during a real-life hijacking, they had to work without input from the U.S. Air Force’s Airborne Warning and Control System or Russia’s A-50 Beriev system.

NORAD and Russia share surprisingly similar tactics, techniques and procedures, Scobee said yesterday during a post exercise news conference. “It is remarkable that they are so similar,” he said. “Even though we developed them separately, we see the problem similarly.”

Subtle differences became transparent during the exercise, Scobee said, because of the “clean handoff” as one command handed the mission and authority over to the other. “It was like a handshake,” he said.

The unifying factor, Scobee said, was an understanding that actions taken could mean the difference between life and death for passengers. “That is the No. 1 thing – and the Russian Federation is just like NORAD [and] the United States and Canada,” Scobee said. “We want to protect our citizens, and that is our primary goal.”

Scobee and Maj. Gen. Sergey Dronov of the Russian air force, who led Russia's delegation in Colorado, praised the professionalism of both the NORAD and Russian militaries and their shared appreciation of the importance of the mission.

“Right now, we have a common enemy, and that is terrorism,” Dronov said through an interpreter.

“Our countries are uniquely plagued by terrorism,” agreed Scobee. “And this exercise gives us an opportunity to work together, to learn from each other about how we are dealing with those kinds of events.”

The goal, he said, is to increase the complexity of the exercises, refining concepts and procedures in simulation, then applying them in the sky the following year.

“Next year, we will go back and use lessons learned from this exercise and apply them to another live-fly exercise,” he said. “It will be one of those things where we learn from each other and keep building on the exercises we have.”

Future exercises will continue to integrate new curve balls that keep participants on their toes while reflecting how adaptable adversaries operate, Scobee said.

“It is a constant chess game, because just like we don’t keep our tactics stagnant, terrorists do the same thing,” he said. “They are always thinking of another way to try to get past our systems of control. So we always have to think about adjusting our tactics, our training and our procedures.”

Dronov said he was impressed during this year’s exercise by how quickly the participants dealt with challenging scenarios thrown their way. “They are also walking away with some priceless experience of interaction with each other,” he said. “I am confident that in the future, this cooperation will continue.”

The Vigilant Eagle series stems from a 2003 agreement between the U.S. and Russian presidents to promote closer cooperation as they move beyond the Cold War era, Scobee explained. The threat of international hijackers served as a foundation to help advance that effort, resulting in a relevant exercise program that helps address a recognized threat.

“The populations of the United States and Canada and the Russian Federation should hear this loud and clear: We are here to ensure their safety,” Scobee said. “Not only do we practice here at NORAD multiple times a day for this to happen, but now we are also practicing with our international partners to ensure that the air systems of all our countries are safe. And then, if something does go wrong, that we are there to take action.”

This helps to provide a unified front against terrorist hijackers like those who attacked the United States on 9/11, giving birth to the Noble Eagle mission, he said.

“We will never be helpless again,” Scobee added. “[The public] should hear that loud and clear.”

Two suspected militants and a member of an elite Indonesian anti-terrorism squad died in a shootout as police attempted to capture a group responsible for the death of a policeman a day earlier, authorities said Saturday. Another suspect was injured and arrested, they said.. . .

Recent terror attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim nation have been by individuals or small groups and have targeted local “infidels” instead of Westerners, with less deadly results.. . .
On Thursday, two men on a motorbike stormed a police post in Solo, fatally shot an officer and fled, Amar said. Hours earlier, an anti-terrorism unit had raided a house in Bandung in West Java province and arrested computer expert Maman Kurniawan, a suspected militant.

Ansyaad Mbai, the head of Indonesia’s anti-terror agency, said Kurniawan is a key member of a new terror cell in North Sumatra’s Medan city and has helped the group hack into several websites to raise nearly $700,000 to finance their activities.. . .
Mbai said one of the suspects who died Friday was identified as Farhan, who studied in an Islamic school founded by Bashir. . .

Two weeks ago, two gunmen fired at a police post in Solo, injuring two officers. A day later, an assailant threw a grenade at another post, wounding two more officers.

Pakistan: Video of Taliban commander posing with a dozen army soldiers severed heads released

A video of a Pakistani Taliban commander posing with a dozen severed heads has been sent to AFP. The heads reportedly belong to Pakistani army soldiers, 15 of whom are missing following a recent clash.

“Praise be to God that the mujahideen in Bajaur agency have managed to kill the infidel soldiers of Pakistan. Many of them were killed by bullets, 12 of them as you see have been beheaded, you see 12 heads here, and more heads are on the way.”